Higher Learning (The Charlie Davies Mysteries Book 4)

by Clare Kauter

  “I YouTubed it on his computer.”

  He looked equal parts horrified and impressed. “Charlie, you’re diabolical.”

  “Thanks. I think,” I said. “Anyway, the important part is what I found in the drawer.”

  “Right, yeah. Sorry for interrupting. Please go on.”

  “He had a file on my brother.”

  “That’s weird and creepy.”

  “It had this picture in.”

  Tim frowned. “Seriously? Why would he have a kid’s school project?”

  I shrugged. “I’m not sure, but I think the building he drew might be significant.”

  “Do you recognise it?”

  I nodded. “I didn’t at the time, but I saw it on the news a little while later.”

  “And?”

  “Someone burned it down.”

  “You think Harcourt was involved with that?”

  I nodded again. “I do.”

  “Seems like too much of a coincidence.” Tim paused. “Charlie... I’m about to ask you something that might hurt, but you have to consider it, OK?”

  “Topher wasn’t in the building when it burned down.”

  “You’re sure?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. I thought of that at the time, but he wasn’t there. I think if he was dead we’d know.”

  Tim frowned. “Why do you say that?”

  “If Harcourt had caught up with him, he would have killed him,” I said. “He already tried that time I got run over. I think he would want me to know. He seems like that type of guy.”

  “Total psychopath?”

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  “I’ve had my fair share to do with them,” said Tim. “And I think you’re probably correct about your brother being alive. Lucky, because I don’t know if I’m cut out for the stress of big-brothering you permanently.”

  I grabbed another handful of Skittles and shoved them in my mouth.

  “Tell me more about Harcourt,” said Tim. “I mean, I’ve heard things, but I don’t really know anything about him.”

  “I don’t know anything for sure,” I said around a mouthful of Skittles.

  Tim’s upper lip curled. “That’s a bit gross, honey.”

  I shrugged. “I’m not trying to impress you.”

  “Oh, don’t worry. That is abundantly clear.”

  I ignored him and continued with the conversation. “You want me to tell you the things I think Harcourt’s involved with?”

  He nodded.

  “I don’t think we have enough time before we have to be back at school for me to get through the full list.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Right. So he has quite the portfolio.”

  I shrugged. “No one seems to believe me, but I think so.”

  “OK, give me, like, the opening paragraph on a Wikipedia article.”

  I snorted and then got to explaining. “If there’s something illegal going down in Gerongate and there’s money involved, Harcourt’s hairy finger is all over that pie.”

  Tim looked suitably disgusted. “How did you make that sound so repulsive?”

  “He’s a repulsive man.”

  “No, I’m pretty sure it was your word choice.”

  I huffed. “Back to the story.”

  “Right, of course.”

  “I think he was involved with Volkov.”

  Tim frowned. “That Russian gangster you tried to attack with your shoes?”

  I ignored him. “The other PI – the one who got stabbed – was trying to tell Adam something when he died, and I think he was trying to say Harcourt’s name.”

  “Seriously?” Tim asked. “How sure are you?”

  “Pretty sure,” I said. “And that’s not all.”

  “There’s more?”

  I took a deep breath before blurting out, “I think he helped Reagan take Gracie.”

  Tim’s eyes widened. “Are you serious?”

  “If there’s a big criminal in town and there’s money involved, I’m pretty sure Harcourt not only knows about it, but also gets money to cover it up,” I said. “Volkov didn’t get arrested the entire time he was in town until I called a different police officer to come and get him.”

  Tim shrugged. “Not exactly conclusive. And what makes you think he was involved with Gracie going missing?”

  “What about that fire?” I said. “With the bodies that weren’t Gracie and Reagan. Harcourt called the whole police force there, meaning that there was no one really looking for Gracie anymore. I’m pretty sure that was meant to allow Reagan to make a clean getaway.”

  Tim nodded slowly. “I can see why you think that, but I’m not entirely sure.”

  “He’s almost definitely involved with my brother going missing, though.”

  Tim didn’t look convinced. “I don’t know. Maybe he was just investigating his disappearance.”

  I folded my arms. “Are you serious?”

  “We need to consider all possibilities, honey.”

  I sighed loudly. “Fine. At best, he’s incompetent and weirdly interested in my brother. At worst he’s a psycho murderer. Either way, we need to look into it.”

  “Charlie, honey, I’m on your side,” said Tim. “You don’t need to get snippy. It’s just that you need to go where the facts lead you, not where you think they’ll take you.”

  I frowned. “Meaning?”

  “Meaning get your hands on the McKenzie boys’ letters.”

  “Mine says not to trust the cops. Isn’t that enough?” I said.

  “You know it isn’t,” he replied. “And their reluctance to show you their letters suggests to me that they know more than they’re letting on.”

  I sighed. Again. Man, I’d been sighing so much tonight I was starting to get dizzy. “Fine. I think I’m going to have to break into Will’s place.”

  “What about James? Are you just going to ignore his letter?”

  “No,” I said. “I just think starting with Will is a better idea.”

  “What, you’re not willing to go behind McKenzie’s back now just because you kissed him?” He shook his head, tutting. “No commitment.”

  “I am going behind McKenzie’s back,” I said. “Just the other McKenzie.”

  Tim folded his arms.

  “I think I might just try asking James,” I said. “He hasn’t explicitly said he won’t show me. He just said he wasn’t going to show me at the time.”

  Tim shook his head at me again. “Whatever. Let’s discuss how you’re going to get your hands on Will’s, then.”

  “Well, I need to figure out when he’ll be home and when he won’t.”

  Tim nodded. “How?”

  “I need to get a look at his work roster.”

  “Any way you could do that without him knowing?”

  I thought for a second. “I could tell his co-workers that I’m trying to throw a surprise party for him.”

  “Is his birthday coming up?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  “Any big life events? New job, promotion, moving house?”

  I sighed. “No,” I said. “Maybe I’ll just say I want to cook him a nice dinner or clean the place or something while he’s not there. Everyone loves him. They’d definitely believe that someone would do that for him.”

  Tim nodded. “Although having you cook for him would probably be more like a punishment.”

  He had a point there, but Will’s co-workers wouldn’t know that.

  “OK, that’s a solid idea,” said Tim. “When are you going to be able to do it?”

  “I’ll head to the clinic tomorrow after school. If Will’s car isn’t in the parking lot, I’ll go in. There should be a couple of people there who’ll recognise me and tell me what I want to know.”

  Tim nodded. “Excellent. And when you get to his house you can YouTube ‘how to pick a lock’ on your phone.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “I have a key.”

  Tim tutted. “He really placed his trust in th
e wrong person.”

  I felt a pang of guilt at the thought of betraying Will. “I don’t have a choice!”

  “I know you don’t,” said Tim. “Just don’t get caught and everything will be OK.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The next morning, Adam picked me up for my exercise. I was briefly relieved when I saw him – I wouldn’t have to put up with Ma’am today! – but then I remembered what had happened yesterday and the relief evaporated.

  “Morning!” I said, trying to be cheery. Adam didn’t reply. In fact, he barely spoke or even looked at me the entire time we exercised that morning. He put me in group classes, and I was pretty sure that was to minimise the amount of time he’d actually have to spend with me. He was pissed. I needed to sort out this case ASAP.

  Friday was an excellent day according to my school timetable. I mean, OK, I had maths second period, but there was no science today so I’d mostly be able to avoid Elliot until cheer training after lunch. At least then he wouldn’t be able to get me by myself. James would be there too, so I knew he’d have my back. There were too many people around for us to talk, so chances were I wouldn’t have to have any kind of D&M with him.

  The classes all passed fairly uneventfully. I kept my promise to Chelsea and didn’t talk back to Mucus all through maths. I’d even done part of the homework we were meant to do, which was more than I’d ever done back in my day. I didn’t bother visiting Tim at lunch, because I’d decided I needed to spend as much time with the other cheerleaders as I could to make up for my colossal fuck up the day before. Adam had been pissed this morning, and while he was never all that cheery, seeing him so annoyed with me had been upsetting. I needed to fix this, and the only way to do that was by throwing myself into my job. That meant assimilating into the cheerleading cult.

  Surprisingly, I actually found myself enjoying my time with the cheerleaders over lunch. Chelsea definitely seemed to loosen up when we weren’t in class or at detention, and I was actually starting to like her. We were sitting by the side of the football oval, on a picnic bench near the fence with some members of the group spilling onto the ground. A car pulled up outside the fence, not far from where we were sitting. A couple of guys stepped out and I recognised them as the guys from the park the day before – the weird guys that hung around the school. Now I was sure that they were the people Jared had been talking about.

  The bell rang. We all stood and began to make our way to the hall to practise cheering.

  “You guys go ahead,” said Chelsea. “I’ll catch up.”

  She walked over to the fence, approaching the guys. I wanted to watch what was going on, but Abhati and the others called out to me and dragged me away.

  “Who are those guys?” I asked the group.

  “They used to be on the football team,” said Jessie, one of the minions. “They left at the end of last year.”

  “What are they doing here if they left last year?” I asked.

  “They’re friends of Chelsea’s,” she explained. “They used to work together at the sports store, before Chelsea quit when she became cheer captain.”

  “Why did she quit?” I asked.

  “She didn’t have enough time,” said Abhati. “Doing the choreography and practice and going to all the sports games the school’s involved in takes a lot of time.”

  I nodded. That made sense. It did seem pretty intense. I’d been told that not only did we train every Friday after lunch (while the rest of the school had sport), but there was also a Tuesday afternoon training session as well as some mornings if we were learning a new routine. That’s not to mention all the away games, and the homework to catch up on when we went on excursions with sporting teams. Holding down a job as well as that would just about be impossible.

  But this did mean that Chelsea knew the guys from the park, which meant that Gabby would have known them as well, at least in passing. They could definitely be my dealers. But it seemed odd that Chelsea would hang around with dealers when she was so concerned about not breaking school rules. And would she really hang around the people who gave her best friend the drugs that killed her? I certainly wouldn’t in her position. None of this made sense. I needed to find out more.

  Chelsea arrived in the hall not long after the rest of the group. We all stretched to warm up and then dived right in to learning our first routine. James and Elliot watched from the side of the room, although they didn’t stand near each other. There was also another woman there who I didn’t recognise. Was she a teacher?

  In between songs, I turned to Abhati.

  “Who’s that?” I asked, gesturing to the lady standing on the sidelines.

  “Chelsea’s mum,” Abhati whispered. “She’s a bit... intense. Comes along to every game to help coach us.”

  I grimaced. That sounded awful. Surely the only good thing about school was that you could get away from your parents. If my mum had started showing up to my school, I would have stopped coming. I guess that proved my theory about Chelsea right – she did have a pushy mum, and that was probably why she was so uptight about being a good cheerleader and doing well in school.

  Chelsea taught us the next round of moves, and I found myself struggling to keep up. It wasn’t just me – most of the squad was having difficulty picking up the combination. In fact, the only person (apart from Chelsea) who seemed to get it was Abhati. She was a machine. Every time we were taught something new, she repeated it perfectly. To be totally honest, in my opinion she was probably a little bit better at cheering than Chelsea. I wondered why she hadn’t been picked as cheer captain.

  When training was done, I walked over to Chelsea’s mum and introduced myself. I don’t know what I was hoping for, but I figured talking to her couldn’t hurt. “Hi,” I said. “I’m Charlotte.”

  “Hello, Charlotte,” she replied. “I’m Mrs Bales.”

  “Your daughter’s a great captain,” I said.

  Mrs Bales gave me a thin smile. “I know she is.”

  Something in her eyes concerned me. I’d complimented her daughter. Why did she look so angry?

  “I just moved here,” I said. “I used to cheer at my last school, but the team was nowhere near as organised as this.”

  She folded her arms over her boobs, forcing her cleavage to bulge out. I tried not to stare as her breasts glared at me. “I hope you didn’t think that you were going to make cheer captain when you transferred.”

  “Oh, no,” I said, decidedly uncomfortable now. I couldn’t think about anything except her boobs. They seemed to be expanding, filling my field of vision. “I’m not really captain material.”

  “I can see that,” she said. “But then, neither was the captain before Chelsea.”

  I frowned. “You mean Gabby? I thought she and Chelsea were friends.”

  “Gabby was a good for nothing junkie and she didn’t deserve to become cheer captain over my daughter,” the woman snapped.

  “Right, of course. I didn’t know her, so...”

  “So you should keep your nose out of other people’s business.”

  A bit late for that, wasn’t it? She’d already let plenty slip. I began to wonder if Chelsea and Gabby had really been that close. What if all this undercover work was for nothing? If Chelsea had just been sucking up to Gabby, maybe she wouldn’t know who the dealer was. Maybe the guys from the park had nothing to do with it. I hoped that wasn’t the case – I couldn’t imagine Adam would be too happy to hear that he’d sent me here for nothing and we were back to square one. Maybe even behind square one. I decided to ask Abhati about it.

  “Hey,” I said, sitting down next to her to stretch out.

  “Hey.”

  I leaned in closer and whispered, “Can I ask you a question?”

  She nodded, her eyes curious. “Sure. What’s up?”

  “I thought that Gabby and Chelsea were friends.”

  Abhati frowned. “They were.”

  “But I just spoke to her mum, and –”

 
“Oh, right,” she said. “That explains it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She leaned in even closer and said, “Mrs Bales always hated Gabby because she was the cheer captain instead of Chelsea.”

  “Oh,” I said. “So it’s just her mum who didn’t like Gabby.”

  Abhati nodded. “But Chelsea and Gabby were really close, even though her mum’s a bit, um, overbearing.”

  I nodded slowly. “Right.” That was weird. But at least that meant that there was still good reason to think Chelsea might know the dealers, and those guys from outside were my number one suspects. Closely followed by Mucus, because I just really wanted her to be arrested. I looked around the room, trying to find James. Should I tell him about those guys? Ask him if he recognised them? It couldn’t hurt.

  But instead of James, my eyes locked on to Elliot, who was staring right at me. I gave him an awkward wave.

  And there we had suspect number three.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  After training, when school was done for the day, I changed out of my uniform and decided to walk down to the clinic where Will worked to get started on my plan to get my hands on Topher’s letter. I didn’t see Will’s car in the car park, which meant he was most likely at home. He wasn’t much of a social butterfly these days. He didn’t often go out of a Friday night, because he was a big fan of the Saturday morning brunch and liked to be in bed early so he could be in tip-top shape for his long black and avocado toast (with a side of breakfast potatoes and grilled mushrooms) the next morning.

  Since Will wasn’t here, I decided to see if I could go inside and sneak a look at his roster. I entered through the front door and signed in at the front desk. The receptionist recognised me – I visited Will here every couple of weeks when I was having a crisis and needed counselling. After all, that was what he was trained in. What were friends for if you couldn’t sponge a bit of free therapy from them?

  The receptionist fell for my ‘I want to go to his house and surprise him with dinner’ story. She told me that she didn’t know what Will’s roster was like over the coming weeks, but said that there was a copy of the roster in the break room.